Karl von Hershing
SS-Standartenfuhrer Karl von Hershing was a German officer of the Schutzstaffel and the German Asien Korps. Serving as the field commander of the Asien Korps (and secretly, its mastermind), he was at the helm of numerous secret Nazi operations throughout World War II, and was also responsible for a number of fiendish massacres through out the war. He serves as the primary antagonist for most of Call of Duty: Iron Wolf. He is voiced by Rupert Friend. Biography Early Life Hershing was born in November of 1908 in Munich, Germany, being the only child of a wealthy upper class family. Even at a very young age, he was sophisticated and polite, but he did have some rather disturbing behavior, such as secretly owning a collection of knives, and he would also torture small animals, ranging from gathering a bunch of ants from one colony and placing them over a different colony in order watch the two colonies fight and kill each other, to finding and then torturing and mutilating rats. He grew up to be a very intelligent, charming and handsome young man and was known to be popular in his community. He studied and excelled at Leipzig University, often at the top of his class. There, he became influenced by the Nazi Party, ultimately joining the ranks of the party. He quickly excelled in his military training and soon became a high ranking officer in the Schutzstaffel. From then on, he became very influential to others. However, he still held views that differed from the party lines and sought his own level of control. As such, he manipulated and influenced his commander, Wilhelm Eibenwitz, as well as Adolf Hitler himself, to create the Asien Korps, so that Germany could keeps its link open with Japan. In reality, Hershing planned to use the Korps to further his own goals, and thus began his own operations within the Korps once World War II began. He also married a woman named Hilde sometime before the war. However, throughout his service, he did have a number of affairs with different women across Europe, Asia and Africa. World War II Hershing served on a number of fronts in the war, personally leading his troops in battle and even fighting along with them, showing incredible fearlessness and ferociousness in the midst of the fighting. Hershing first served in Asia, leading German troops of the Asien Korps in fighting fierce battles in China and India with the start of the Japanese invasion in 1937. While extensively helping the Japanese forces, Hershing's German forces were fighting fiercely in multiple vicious battles and skirmishes across China and then India, battling fiercely in the tropical jungles terrain to crush the enemy Chinese and British forces they opposed. With Hershing leading them, and the Japanese helping them at their side greatly, the German forces there made vicious assaults on Chinese and British defenses, committed raids on enemy positions, and then seized and defended villages and lines from Chinese and British forces. The German soldiers of the Asien Korps were mostly successful and victorious in their war, as they fiercely crushed all their opponents and achieved most of their objectives. While his German troops brutally crushed enemy forces, they still maintained friendly relations with local civilians in most places. After fighting in China and India, Hershing would lead German forces in North Africa, fighting fiercely against British and French forces primarily in the deserts of Libya, Tunisia and Algeria. Hershing's German forces would consistently commit fierce assaults and raids against Allied forces in the deserts, while fighting in a series of multiple vicious battles against them, often crushing their enemies and seizing numerous villages in fierce fighting. While in Africa, Hershing would meet Corporal Erich Schifler, and Hershing would proceed to mentor and manipulate the young soldier. Hershing and his soldiers would continue fighting fierce battles and skirmishes in the North African deserts until he made his move on Russia. Hershing then went to Russia to begin stealing gold from Soviet reserves. While there, he serves in a number of battles, such as Stalingrad, Kharkov and Kursk. He lead his troops in assaulting Soviet defenses in the Battle of Stalingrad, decisively succeeding in driving off many of the Russians. Eventually, he encountered Mikhail Vylkalev in the outskirts of Stalingrad, engaging him and his men in a fierce skirmish. As a result, Hershing killed and wounded many of Vylkalev's men, forcing them to retreat into the city to search for medical attention. Later, Hershing appeared in the Battle of Kharkov, leading troops in the fight. He had his Asien Korps soldiers guard a few positions in the city, such as the train station, and later on, Hershing helped lead the German counterattack to drive the Russians out of the city. With the Germans now in control of Kharkov, Hershing took great pleasure in conducting reprisals against the locals. He had his troops massacre hundreds of Russians, with him personally murdering several of them. After this, he lead his troops to search for others, eventually coming across Viktor Reznov and Dimitri Petrenko. Hershing taunts the two men as they remain defiant, then attempts to execute them. However, the two escaped his clutches due to the intervention of Mikhail Vylkalev. Upon hearing that an important document containing information on the Hershing Korps had been stolen from the SS office in Tunis by the British Special Air Service, Hershing lead a mission to Tunisia in order to retrieve the journal. There, he and his men assisted Afrika Korps soldiers lead by Captain Reinifer and Corporal Heinrich Schifler in the vicious battle of Khirsijine, fighting to eliminate the British garrison there. After fiercely crushing the British forces, Hershing retrieves the journal, but then he secretly conducts a massacre of British prisoners and forces Heinrich to watch, even killing the Arab nomads which Heinrich and his garrison had befriended earlier. After this, he gets into an argument with Reinifer for his behavior, which leads to Hershing murdering him, then he orders Leischer to execute Heinrich as he takes Heinrich's friend, Private Hans Kiefel, into town. However, Heinrich escapes and makes his way to rescue Kiefel, leading to Heinrich battling Hershing. However, just before Heinrich and Kiefel can make off with the journal, Hershing pursues and kills Kiefel while fatally wounding Heinrich. Due to being wounded in the side of his stomach, Hershing is unable to continue chasing as Heinrich escapes, getting a piece of the journal to retreating British soldiers. Before he left, however, Hershung came upon Erich Schifler once again, and Hershing then influenced him to join the Asien Korps as a skilled soldier, and Hershing would take Erich with him to do so. With the mission complete, Hershing returns to Russia to continue his gold smuggling operations. He leads troops in the Battle for Kursk, battling and taking out Russian garrisons and defenses. He encounters Reznov and Dimitri again, this time he quickly wounds and captures their comrade, Yuri Kamarov, and proceeds to brutally execute him in front of them. When they escape to a nearby village, he sends troops to engage them, but they manage to hold the village anyways. After this, Hershing sets up an encampment to embark on their next move, and while there, he taunted Russian prisoner, Tanya Makarova before discussing with Leischer his plan to use mustard gas on Russian pockets, despite the presence of German soldiers in those pockets as well. However, Reznov and Dimitri confront him, leading to Hershing capturing and conversing with them, in which Hershing explains his rather maverick views on the Nazi system. However, Reznov's men raid the camp, destroying the mustard gas capsules and enabling Reznov and Dimitri to escape from him again. Hershing sends Waffen SS troops after them, but it is to no avail, as they are destroyed by Soviet reinforcements. Still in possession of the gold, Hershing steals a couple of trains to carry the gold along the Trans-Siberian railway. While Hershing himself manages to get one train into Manchuria, the second one, commanded by Leischer, is stopped by Reznov, who kills Leischer. After getting the train to Manchuria, Hershing would lead his German forces in committing fierce raids and assaults in the Middle East, as well as some other assaults in North Africa, fighting fiercely and destroying British and French positions. Hershing would often command Erich Schifler throughout his service as well. After much fierce fighting in the deserts of the Middle East and North Africa, engaging in fierce raids, assaults and skirmishes, Hershing would make his way back to Asia. Hershing kept leading German forces in fighting fierce battles and skirmishes in China and India, often receiving help from Japanese troops in battle. Hershing also kept leading Erich in battle, but as the war started deteriorating for the Axis side, Erich started becoming alienated by Hershing's slowly growing sociopathic behavior and made attempts to abandon him. However, Hershing continued keeping him under his control regardless, using either manipulation or even forceful intimidation to do so. Hershing still lead German forces in making fierce assaults and raids against Chinese and British forces in China and India, even seizing and defending villages and lines in the jungle terrains. However, while they kept fighting ferociously and crushing their enemies, the Allies eventually closed in around them, with the Soviet Union preparing to invade Manchuria. Hershing prepared his forces to assist in repelling the Soviet Invasion of Manchuria. When the Soviets did invade (some of them lead by Viktor Reznov and Mikhail Vylkalev), Hershing sent out some of his forces to help the Japanese defend some areas. Hershing continued to guard his secret castle, working on his plans to create uranium fitted V2 missiles, but now had plans to evacuate the missiles towards one of his other Nazi bases in Japan, near Kyoto. However, after Reznov fights past German and Japanese defenses in Manchuria in a vicious battle, killing Shirasaki, he gains information leading to Hershing's castle. Reznov leads his men to storm the castle, but Hershing and his men spring a trap and launch an ambush for them, leading to Reznov being captured. Hershing has fellow Soviets tortured in front of Reznov, then he has Reznov brought to his high up office. There, Hershing taunts Reznov, even briefly suffocating Mischa with his boot, before explaining his plans. However, as Vylkalev comes to rescue Reznov, Hershing ambushes Vylkalev and takes him hostage. At this point, the charges Reznov set on the missiles go off, destroying the missiles, leading to Hershing taking the uranium and Vylkalev to escape, while Reznov pursues him. Reznov and Erich manage to stop the uranium from shipping out, securing it, while Hershing brings Vylkalev to a tower on the castle grounds. There, Hershing ambushes a pursuing Reznov, nearly killing him if not for the intervention of Mischa. Reznov battles Hershing in vicious fighting, and though he gets the best of Reznov, Hershing finds himself now fighting Vylkalev. However, just before Hershing can kill Vylkalev, Reznov takes a fire axe and chops off Hershing's arm with it, as well as slicing his eye. Now bested, Hershing taunts Reznov, inciting him to kill him. With out any remorse, Reznov and Vylkalev kill Hershing, with Reznov stabbing Hershing with a knife before setting him ablaze with a Molotov cocktail, then Vylkalev kicks him out of a hole in the tower, leading Hershing to fall to his death, finally ending him and his reign of terror. Personality and traits A highly intelligent and charismatic individual, Hershing is shown to be very cruel and manipulative, as well as an extremely brutal, sadistic commander. He is shown to be incredibly charming, intelligently sophisticated and mischievous when interacting with others, but this is clearly only masking his truly sinister and fiendish nature and his great desire to bring pain and suffering to others, making him a truly terrifying individual. Hershing is extremely sadistic, manipulative and cruel. He takes great joy in causing immense pain to others, such as brutally and killing many people in bloody massacres, as well as sadistically toying with his victims to increase their suffering, all of which he greatly relishes in. Hershing was incredibly playful and mischievous when interacting with others and is also very charming and polite in these interactions. He demonstrates himself as a very brilliant manipulator and a cunning liar, being able to easily influence others. He will consistently toy with his victims in a sadistic manner, behaving in a sophisticated, yet ruthless way. He could also be sarcastic and demeaning in order to further demoralize his opponents. While he brutally massacres and sadistically toys with and cruelly tortures his victims, he maintains a terrifying air of calm and sophistication, while exacting extreme bloodthirsty savagery, adding to his terror. He is very power hungry and is also opportunistic, acting purely out of self interest. He consistently tries to gain more and more power to himself and his organization and also feels a need to demonstrate his power and control over others. He greatly enjoys torturing people, both physically and mentally, such as when he massacred Arab nomads in front of Heinrich Schifler, and tortured and executed captured Soviets in front of Viktor Reznov, both simply for the purpose of traumatizing these single individuals. Despite sharing some views with the Nazis, he holds views that differ greatly from the party lines, such as seeing different peoples on an equal level as Germans, running contrary to view of the superiority of ethnic Germans held by the Nazis, though he does somewhat believe in the inferiority of Russian people. Moreover, he is best described as a Social Darwinist rather than a racial supremacist. However, he is mostly just incredibly narcissistic and believes himself to be much greater than others around him, as he views others as simply tools or objects for his amusement. He demonstrates himself to have severe psychopathic traits, as he clearly displays a complete lack of empathy and remorse, takes great joy in manipulating and possesses extreme narcissism and an excruciating need for control. He was extremely merciless and ruthless in battle and could act stern to those he deemed unfit for war. Overall, he lacked any humanity, as he was entirely willing to kill anyone in his path in order to gain power, which was the most important thing to him, making him a megalomaniac who has no care for anyone affected by his lust for power, even his own men, and in fact, wished to harm as many as he could. He also appears to be a moral nihilist, believing that morals are nonexistent and that death and power are central. Overall, Hershing was an extremely cruel, sadistic, power hungry, uncaring, selfish, cunning, narcissistic and ruthless individual who hid himself behind a facade of charming sophistication and politeness. The only things he ever desired was immense power and to be able to kill and harm as many people as he could in order to satisfy his extreme sadism. Hershing was a tall and rather very handsome looking individual with a very fit and athletic build and possessing blond hair and sharp blue eyes, making him strikingly similar to Hitler's "Ideal Aryan". Relationships Viktor Reznov Hershing has a very complicated relationship with Reznov. The two were always enemies during the war, since they were on opposite sides of the conflict. However, their animosity ran much deeper for both personal and ideological reasons. While Reznov was bitter and threatening towards the man, Hershing was very condescending and menacing in return. Hershing treated Reznov with a mix of sophistication and cruelty, as he enjoyed toying with and tormenting the man. Interestingly, Hershing still remained very calm and charming towards Reznov, and would talk to him often in a rather civil manner, though Hershing clearly liked sadistically toying with him. Even more interesting, is that Hershing did seem to have just a bit of respect for Reznov. Despite this, the two remained hostile to one another and wished for nothing more than to kill each other. Erich Schifler Hershing saw much potential in Erich, seeing him as a strong and capable soldier, though it is unknown whether he truly felt this way or simply saw him as a useful pawn. Regardless, Hershing consistently mentored and influenced him whenever they were in each other's presence. Hershing would constantly manipulate Erich, gaining his loyalty and even getting the young soldier to join the Asien Korps as a soldier to serve under him, and Erich and Hershing would fight side by side in battle often, with Hershing leading him. Erich continued loyally serving Hershing, but their relationship started becoming strained as Erich began seeing more of the brutal person Hershing really was. Hershing started using force and intimidation in order to keep him under his control. In the end, Erich left the Korps and defected over to the side of the Russians during the Soviet Invasion of Manchuria, even helping Viktor Reznov to storm Hershing's base and confront him. Wilhelm Eibenwitz Hershing seemed to have a working relationship with Eibenwitz, though he only seemed to view him as an instrument towards his own obtainment of power. Hershing constantly manipulated and influenced his commander, such as getting him to create the Asien Korps with Hitler's approval. Eibenwitz also seemed to start adopting many of Hershing's maverick views on Nazism. Leischer Hershing also had a good relationship with his second in command, Leischer. Hershing had great trust in Leischer to carry out many of his sinister orders. Leischer was entirely devoted Hershing and his cause and served him with the greatest loyalty. Leischer also seemed to be fully aware of Hershing's goals and continued serving him greatly, as Hershing trusted him enough with such information. Mikhail Vylkalev Vylkalev resented Hershing, as Hershing was responsible for killing and wounding Vylkalev's closest comrades in Stalingrad. Vylkalev would continue fervently hunting Hershing throughout the war, finally ending in Manchuria. Vylkalev helps Reznov to fight and kill Hershing, with Vylkalev kicking the Nazi officer out of a window of a tower so he could fall to his death. Hiroshi Shirasaki Hershing and Shirasaki had a great relationship and got along very well. The two often coordinated strategies and assisted each other in their plans, and the two worked very well together and were highly productive. Their two armies shared this relationship and would commonly work and fight side by side, with mostly successful and victorious results. The two formulated their plans together to carve out Manchuria and use it as a base to retake the former empires of their countries. In the end, Shirasaki remained very loyal to Hershing, even to his death. Dimitri Petrenko It can be assumed that the two already disliked each other. He does show some rather sarcastic admiration for Dimitri's position as "Hero of Stalingrad", before he then attempted to execute him and Reznov. Their animosity only grew deeper when Hershing proceeded to brutally execute Yuri Kamarov, one of Dimitri's close friends. After this, Dimitri absolutely despised Hershing, later calling him a "monster" when he confronted him in his camp. Skills and Abilities Manipulation Hershing is an incredibly brilliant and highly skilled manipulator. Despite being a Captain at the time, Hershing himself had manipulated and influenced his commander, General Wilhelm Eibenwitz, as well as the Fuhrer himself, Adolf Hitler, into creating the Asien Korps, and he further manipulated them to continue funding the Korps for his continual use. He often appeared as an affable, honest and even somewhat caring individual in order to cover up his truly sinister, uncaring and sadistic nature. Due to his intelligent manipulation and incredible charisma, he could easily gain the trust of many people in order to gain help or information or simply to have them within his sphere of influence. As proof of his highly intelligent skills, he consistently manipulated and influenced Wilhelm Eibenwitz and Erich Schifler, both of whom were very brilliant men. He easily manipulated them into helping him and he kept a tight air of control and influence over them, leading them both to believe he was a savoir leading them to their greatness, even though, secretly, he was only working for his own. He also easily gained the trust of local peoples in different parts of the world, as his Korps mostly behaved very kind and affable to them. As a result, he influenced many locals to assist him and his Korps and he was also able to fool many of those within the Nazi high command to serve his interests. Leadership Using his skills, his influence and the fear others have of him, Hershing is shown to be an excellent leader. He is extremely fearless and he personally leads his troops into battle, and through out the war, he leads numerous successful assaults and operations against enemy forces. He is able to create brilliant strategies and implement them in the best way on the battlefield, and he is able to come up with a back up plan. He usually has his men engage in guerilla ambushes, and he also believed in entirely crushing his opponents in battle when he could, as his battle plans seemed to reflect his joy in toying with and exerting power over his enemies. Due to the strong influence he has over his men, the German soldiers of the Asien Korps follow his orders just as much, if not more so, than Eibenwitz Combat Along with his charismatic leadership and manipulative skills, Hershing is also a very capable fighter in combat. He is easily able to take out and kill numerous opponents when fighting in battle, showing great skills in marksmanship and hand to hand fighting. He easily shoots down numerous enemies with guns and is also able to quickly incapacitate different opponents in melee combat with his fists or a knife. He was able to hold off both Viktor Reznov and Mikhail Vylkalev in fierce wrestling for a long amount of time before he was eventually subdued and killed. He has an extremely vicious and sadistic way of fighting, as he often creates as much pain in his opponent as he can before finishing them off. All these traits make him quite feared by many of his enemies. 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